fairuse’s Techdirt Profile

About fairuse

No longer writing assembly code and burning EPROM for stuff regular folks never buy. That life has been replaced with consumer rights issues; copy protection, copyright, DVD backup and helping folks understand the DMCA.

Machines: I don't iPhone I Gphone. Mac user, no Microsoft machine running currently - The coffee maker stand is win98 on a 20MB drive. The PDP-11/34 is unplugged but the excellent power conditioner (30amp max draw) is where iMac G4 and stuff gets juice.

4. Video via Twitter, Facebook, and the group of video I call "post anything now and move on", Vine, Snapchat, Periscope, Bambuser, and others.

The top of the food chain is 1 an the bottom is 4, only as a reference.

Now, the question is what is going to happen? I pay Comcast for the works, Amazon Prime, and Netflix.

Hulu will decline for reasons that I think is "Not getting it". All the rest, 3 & 4, I don't know what will happen. A clue is Amazon making deals with short film format content creators with high quality; pulling them away from free viewing.

Apple made sure the iPhone is a controlled environment.There is no reason to remove the audio jack. The digital audio is not going to make dynamic compressed mp3 better. Whatever youtube outputs is random quality. Audiobooks? OOPS mp3 or whatever itunes plays (Note: I refuse to use iTunes for anything. I just hate it.)

So, why is the mini-jack gone? 1. Manufacturing costs. 2. DRM. 3. Apple says so. Reckon my $300 Bose bluetooth headphones will work. My Motorola bluetooth will not (that model is not seen by iPads also.) The backup wired earwigs require an interface -- mini-jack to bluetooth which is not what Apple wants.

It's plain market control and it's a telephone so Apple is the gatekeeper.

I have 2 Kindles, 3 iPads, 2 HTC mobiles, and 1 Samsung mobile. Keeping headphones charged for all day listening is a chore.

Good point. The enduser of hardware such as you describe have no idea what is in the box. I worked in process control, living in machine code heaven. Back in late 70's thru 90's debugging embedded OS (mostly ROM) was hell. I bet this "backdoor" was requested by hardware designers as a tool. Oops, forgot to tell the make to kill it for production.

First, I thought this person needs a doctor. Playing, "I'm not a lawyer but I play one in real life." is foolhardy.

Second, knowing absolutely nothing about the person except for what I read I'll say there is something unbalanced in thinking every one of the hotel's staff is out to get her.

Third, she forgets "document bag" at each hotel. Thinks little things like missing bathroom tissue is taken by staff. Wants her way with hotel's staff and a guest at 0400 in the morning.

Plus, nobody in their right mind writes a screenplay idea as facts supporting the claim. I kinda feel bad for the judge, however, since I'm figuratively barfing in Mz Ferrell's shoes after reading her word soup it doesn't matter what I think.

By then, agents said USTO was suffering from diminishing returns. More criminals — especially the sophisticated cartel operatives the agency targeted — were communicating on Internet messaging systems that are harder for law enforcement to track.

Management hates looking bad:

Still, the shutdown took a toll, officials said. "It has had a major impact on investigations," one former DEA official said.The DEA asked the Justice Department to restart the surveillance program in December 2013. It withdrew that request when agents came up with a new solution. Every day, the agency assembles a list of the telephone numbers its agents suspect may be tied to drug trafficking. Each day, it sends electronic subpoenas — sometimes listing more than a thousand numbers — to telephone companies seeking logs of international telephone calls linked to those numbers, two official familiar with the program said.

The data collection that results is more targeted but slower and more expensive. Agents said it takes a day or more to pull together communication profiles that used to take minutes.

Not sure what changed. Oh, the minor change is the DEA gets to focus on its job, not play 007.

Good Read, thanks.I took the east road reading the comments -- read just the blue ones. I find confusion over the term "Intellectual Property" is just what the economic policy makers wanted, in part. Government policy in trade agreements is all about protection of some industry.

Policy is a form of advertising. Imply ideas are property and soon, as I read here, folks will already have a bias towards the policy; IP = physical objects.

The ancient problem of the ruler having to play a game of blackmail by his spy, the a sword over said ruler's head, or getting the enemy. Washington DC is a cesspool of backstabbing. Only power matters and that is the ruler's sword over his spy's head.

People don't care how phones, internet, and any device in their house does what it does; Smart-devices.Item Phone: was a thing wired to the wall -- now it is a computer.Item Internet: It's a way to do things regardless of how foolish a thing can be -- count the number of penis flashing on social apps. Chatroulette being what it is.Item TV, computer, tablet are used by folks to do pretty much everything.

Case of streaming video: There is a huge gap between what marketing tells a person and fact that the average person watching video has no clue about how pretty moving pictures got there. Experts lecture, people twitter that video sucks.

Case of trying to reach an audience that cannot fit the "Big NSA watching them" into their reality: Enter Mr. Oliver. His job of predigesting the law and painting a familiar picture for normal folks. Picture of penis vs bits of data.

Maybe I see too much crazy stuff online but most people treat pictures, video and in-the-clear e-mail rants as just life -- one big High School/College Frat party.

I think John Oliver did a good job getting the word out to a large number of people who zoneout once the tech speak starts.

Maybe folks should watch CBS Person of Interest and get a hint of the real scary stuff; AI with no human controls. Save that for 2080 generation.

ACT II.People don't care how a thing does magic as long as it doesn't interfere with their goal - open car door, start car, tell the residence to go lock down, buy food.

ACT IIIThe leader of the [ ] makes 1 system and declares it mandatory. This system spans networks all cities and is the only way to do any task; even buy coffee.

METHOD: place finger on device. The device compares DNA sample to data on file. You are a match = 1? Good. There is no invalid compare = 0. Mismatch = Infinity? Infinity means you are a clone or worse; from the future.

This brings us to a VFX short film because the film has every horror you can relate to. Count the topics: hint we are trying to find the 1 solution now. It is fun to see all the security vs safety, commerce tracking, locks and passwords are DNA ID and the police have 100% of the data, the access, you are instantly guilty, go to jail, do not collect (..)

I watched hulu and Fancast (became Xfinity) from the beginning. The owners of the content had to be dragged into internet streaming with force. They fought back with DRM, device selection, authorization methods and all the stuff we never hear.

You can bet both HBO and Comcast have a huge fight on every device and platform CONTENT is displayed. I get it a playstation or xxx box should be allowed to display CONTENT without restriction. Not going to happen until a legal contract between device manufacturer and CONTENT providers happen.

This HBO deal is a marketing campaign to get HBO on iTunes. College kids.

What is missing:NO Cinemax - OMG Banshee and Strike Back are orphans.

Disclaimer: I buy Comcast internet and cable TV. Two big screens attached to HD DVRs. I have all the premium packages, 1000 channels of stuff.

Sports not so much.

Online Xfinity is probably what Apple iThingy users wish they get via iTunes - NOPE.I will say now that the Apple HBO deal will have content restrictions that make sure HBO via cable operators is unchanged - the short, Apple gets subset and windowing of start and expire dates on content will favor cable.

Our law makers are complaisant. It's all about power and money. Just try to work around the insanity of DRM and Streaming. Yes, streaming is the biggest hoax on consumers since .. ah .. damn pet rocks. No I mean derivatives (finance) -- http://is.gd/XJdjzo [wikipedia]

The networks are slowly learning. The model of "enter your cable provider" allows the higher cost shows to spread risk across the network's advertising sales. NOTE: I just made a hypothetical because nobody publicly talks about money. Putting a new show on Amazon or iTunes is another round of exclusive deals with the network having to throw more lawyers in. More dollars up in smoke.

Don't think of no desire for online, which can occur, as a simple deal. Money goes to the Artist's unit managing the show. The network then sells ads, collects Cable OnDemand $ and viewing stats. The live rating, replay, DVR viewing, ondemand viewing are the cold hard facts of making $ or losing money.

The "Deal" for Amazon Instant Video is a box nobody can see into except the buyer/seller. Also, distribution rights have to be thought out from the beginning (CBS Person of Interest got No online per Warner in 1st season; DVD sales.).

And it gets better, however, that's your homework.Headache starting...

That is best answer to all the hand wringing and argument seeking emotional response out of the group users (ISP customers). I would put a link here to a resource but it will fall on minds assured the knowledge, in the form of opinion, is righteous.

Don't forget the recording industry created contracts with artists that stipulated rights transfer so there is nothing an artist can do. Those contracts, as far as I know from persons involved way back, are just extortion. Labels had the artist in a my-way-or-no-way position.